Construction Camp, Day 5

The 5th and final day of camp. We didn’t touch the ceiling and that’s ok. We built the tallest thing Brightworks has ever built, faced big fears, made new friends, and supported each other through some fantastic moments.

One of my favorite moments was when one of the older groups where showing off their hideout over in Kid City. A line formed to climb the ladder and head in when one of the older kids who was hosting the tour said, “Hold on, I’ll come over to make sure kids don’t fall.” A tiny gesture with so much meaning wrapped up in it. Conscious of others, conscious of the limits of their creation, conscious of the abilities of others.

Anna, our most amazing volunteer, helped build a cardboard house.

Our first attempt to raise the new tall tower failed. It was too heavy, we didn’t have a pulley system in place and we couldn’t figure out how to get the base to slide backwards once the top was limited by our rafters.

All hands!

The older kids showed off their hideout.

And their sweet digs.

Off too the park, where some kids flew!

Attempt two was much more interesting and well thought out. We had 4 teams. Lifting team, Foot team, Rope team 1 and Rope team 2. Lifting team would lift the beam with their brute force, Foot team would keep the whole thing from sliding away and Rope team 1 would pull on our rafter-based pulley system (a rope over our rafters) to help the Lifters. Once the the tower was high enough, Rope team 2 went in, grabbed a rope that was tied to the base and pulled the base under the top. It took almost every member of camp to accomplish.

As usual, we ended the day and the week with a circle, highlights and thanks.